Franciscan Sister of Christian Charity Sister Concepcion Medina reflects on a recent Formation Weekend held at the Motherhouse. Sister Concepcion Medina, Sister Catherine Peter Logan, Sister Michelle Marie Ozuna and Sister Rose Reed were invited by Sister Jacqueline Spaniola and Sister Kathleen Murphy for this special time together.
On February 13-15 we, in formation, gathered once again for our annual formation weekend. This year our focus was on virtue. We started the weekend with a movie about St. Pope John XXIII. The movie was called Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope. It was an excellent movie. The movie beautifully depicted the life of the good Pope. I don’t want to give any spoilers away because I would definitely recommend watching the film but it let me more emotional at times than I expected. It was a beautiful depiction of how the Lord loves and what a virtuous life can look like. The movie showed how the Lord can choose someone to do great things even when everyone around them thinks very little of them. The Lord seeks those who have a heart for Him.
Saturday we started our schedule dedicated to prayer, followed by talks from Sister Marie Kolbe Zamora and Sister Carol Juckem. As could be expected, the talks were illuminating. Our first session provided the groundwork for a new or renewed experience of ourselves in Christ. During this session, our Sister speakers spoke of the Thomist view of a human being two parts, body and soul. The main focus, however, came from St. Paul’s understanding of the human person. We as human people are three parts; body, soul, and spirit. This understanding of who we are is evident in the Bible, but much of the meaning is lost in the English translation. In the Greek three different words are used to express different levels of life. When translated to English much of the meaning is lost since we only have one word for life.
In the Greek, the levels of life are bios (body), psyche (mind), and zoè (spirit). Each level of life has its own translation of love. The form of love in the bios level has a physical pay off, i.e. things relating to eating, sleeping, reproducing. Love in the psyche level has a sense of well-being pay off. Meaning the psyche’s role in life enables us to think/judge/know, desire/choose/love, feel, and imagine/remember. Love in the Zoè level is the purest form of love. This is the level in which agápē love is the reward. The form of love in which we are able to experience and love each other as gift without ulterior motives. It is at this level that true Community can happen in religious life. This communion of three parts in one is very “on brand” for a triune God. The understanding of our make-up is the foundation of the virtues.
Our afternoon session focused on the Cardinal virtues of faith, hope, and charity. These virtues are rooted in the reality of our baptism. Through baptism we become a new creation, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:19). To truly live out our baptism we have to recognize that this is not just beautiful language, it’s a reality. This is what it means to be baptized; to live in the same way that Jesus lived. To live our baptism requires us to let go of ourselves and live intentionally in/with Christ. Faith is the virtue that enables us to have relationship with the living God. This intentional/willful living is virtue. Faith is living a life in which we recognize ourselves being grasped by God and directing our lives towards him. Hope is the virtue that keeps us in relationship with God. Hope is especially revealed in difficulty. Charity is the height of us living in/with God. It is the manifestation of agápē love; the loving as God loves. This virtue is entering in fully in our relationship with God. Charity is full Communion with God.
We came to recognize that in our lives with God, we still maintain a flavor of ourselves. After our talks, we ended with more prayer time and reflection time. Our time together ended on Sunday with dinner. We enjoyed our time together and are thankful for the time and energy that our Sisters took to put this together.
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